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Judge suspends Mladic trial

May 17, 2012

The war crimes trial of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic has been halted due to a prosecution error a day after opening at The Hague. Mladic is on trial for his role in the murders of over 7,000 Muslim men and boys.

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Former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic sits in the courtroom during his trial
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

The presiding judge at the war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic delayed proceedings on Thursday, citing a prosecution error.

Three hours into the high-profile trial's second day at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, judge Alphons Orie declared that the prosecution had failed to submit all its evidence to Mladic's defense in time.

He suspended the next phase of the trial, the presentation of evidence, which had originally been scheduled to take place on May 29. A new date is yet to be announced.

Bosnia Reacts As War Crimes Trial is Halted

Mladic, the so-called "Butcher of Bosnia," is charged with 11 counts of war crimes, including two of genocide during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

Prosecutors had spent the second day of the trial describing the "horror" of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, which Mladic is accused of orchestrating. Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in what was the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

"Mladic himself was on the ground and personally involved," prosecutor Peter McCloskey told the court on Thursday.

ccp/msh (APF, dpa)